BLOOD DRAGON by Freddie Peters (books to get back into reading .TXT) 📕

Beth stopped her. “What if it is dangerous?”

“What do you mean? It’s too small to be a bomb.”

“Something chemical perhaps … I’ve read that somewhere. Politicians in the US are sent letters with poison in them all the time.”

Cora shook her head. “Not all the time … sometimes … and frankly, I’m almost sympathetic when it comes to certain politicians.” But she didn’t open the packet. Beth slid her eyes towards the kitchen. DS Branning had returned from his cigarette break and was reading a newspaper.

“How about talking to him about it?” Beth whispered.

Cora shook her head again. If she told him, she would never get to see the contents of the envelope, even if they were important to her. It was evidence …

She tiptoed to the bedroom and returned with a pair of gloves. She sat down again and pulled the envelope towards her. The stamps were UK stamps and the date of postage was three weeks earlier. Ollie’s name and address were on the reverse of the packet but the original address was in Hong Kong, a name she had never heard before … Randy Zang. The parcel had not been delivered and was being returned to sender.

She examined the flap of the envelope. It did not seem to have been tampered with.

Cora took a small breath, held it and started to open the flap, trying not to tear it. It resisted to start with. She took her time to coax it open and finally managed. Beth’s face had followed the operation, forehead creased, one eye on the kitchen.

Cora tilted the packet, her heart pounding. Perhaps an explanation about the horrendous events of the past 48 hours would be contained in the package.

The top of a stack of printed papers appeared.

She read the titles in a low voice as they came out one after the other.

Human intervention in the food chain: Animal to human viral transmission, an increased risk, by Ollie Wilson.

Antibiotic resistant microbes – the future of pandemics, by Ollie Wilson.

There were a few more papers written by him on similar topics … arguing how vital proper research was in areas that might not yield immediate monetary results, the impact of bioinformatics on data harvesting and how it could accelerate the initial phase of research in the fields of virology and immunology.

Cora pushed the papers around cautiously with her gloved fingers.

She found a transcript of several of Bill Gates’ interventions on the subject of epidemics and pandemics.

Finally, she tried to make sense of a document that had been folded on itself. She hesitated, reaching deep into the envelope to pull out the item. The meetings schedule of Jared Turner over the past year, with dates circled in red and marked ‘China’, emerged.

* * *

Her mobile was ringing again. Nancy’s meeting with Superintendent Marsh had been confirmed for 1pm. She grabbed her phone, half hoping it was Denise, Marsh’s PA, proposing a new date or even better cancelling. It was not Denise, but the name of the caller made her smile.

“Yvonne … What do you have for me?”

“To be more precise … what my contact has for you. I’ve got to say the turnaround time rather surprises me. I was bracing myself for a long two weeks and a few calls reminding my contact we were expecting an answer soon … but here we are.”

“Which means?”

“Whatever or whoever the document deals with is very much on their radar.”

“That’s rather strange.” Nancy could not decide whether she was pleased or concerned. “It’s a very old case and apart from me, I don’t see who at MI6 …” Her mouth ran dry. She had just been handed the answer to a question that had been puzzling her for a couple of days.

“Well, it seems this file is red hot at the moment … don’t ask me why … they wouldn’t tell me but the document you sent me and the photos are authentic.”

For a moment she was lost for words. She had suspected this to be the case, but she needed to be certain. All she knew about her father or thought she knew, was being overturned by the revelation she had just received.

Who had her father really been?

Yvonne waited for a moment. “Won’t you tell me who it is we are talking about?”

“I’d rather not Yvonne, a few people have been hurt in the process, so perhaps the less you know …”

“So very kind of you to be protective, but let me worry about my own safety.” Yvonne had once demonstrated her ability to defend herself when an ill-intentioned thug had tried to steal her bag as she and Nancy were coming out of a small bar next to where she worked. The knee she stuck into his groin and the fingers in his eyes had done the trick.

“On the other hand, Nancy, if you’d rather not talk about it for other reasons, it is fine by me. I’m not insisting, I’m just trying to help.”

“And it’s very much appreciated.” Nancy fidgeted with a few pieces of paper that lay on the coffee table. “How much detail is your contact able to give me? Reasons why they think the documents and photos are authentic, for example.”

“Funny you should say that … my contact is prepared to be generous about the information they have gathered.”

“And what does your contact want in return?” There would never be a free lunch with MI6 and she was prepared to accept it.

“As I mentioned before, the results of your investigation using this information, whatever they are.”

“I still don’t quite see the benefit to the agency. Do they have something specific in mind?”

“If they have, they haven’t told me and I can’t imagine they would. But my experience is like yours. There is something they are going to get out of all this.”

“Fine, when do I get the extra information?”

“If you come to the lab